Daxi Old Street (Daxi Part I)

Most of our meals in Taiwan consisted of street food, which is fine by me. Taiwan has so many different kinds of yummy street foods, I don’t really understand why you’d want to eat anything else. When we finally made it to Daxi (pronounced Dah-shee), we continued eating these “small bites”.

Daxi is known for its tofu products. Among them is something called “Tofu gan” or dried tofu. This is similar to the baked tofu we see at Whole Foods, except it is seasoned. My mom’s friend’s family owns one of the more well-known dried tofu shop (click here for the link). Below is a picture of her friend and me.

Another type of tofu is called “do-hua” and it has the consistency of silken tofu, but is served as a dessert. Here’s a picture of a bowl of do-hua that Michael and I shared:

It’s often served with shaved ice on top. You then choose different toppings to go on the ice, and finally, they pour this yummy sugary syrup all over. I asked for them to put barley and snow-ear fungus on top. I know that sounds gross because fungus is often associated with toenails and rot in Western cultures, but this is obviously not that type of fungus. It has such a clean taste. I LOVE it!

The city itself has become very touristy. This is the “Old Street”, and I never remember seeing so many people walking around. We would go to Daxi to escape the hustle and bustle of Taipei.

You’ll notice that there are European style decorations on many of the houses. This is from the Japanese era. When the Japanese occupied Taiwan, they provided money for improvements, so each house wanted to out-do its neighbor. When the families were building the various arches over people’s houses, they’d put up walls around the construction so others could not see and copy his or her design.

There was a shop that sold these puppets. I used to love watching these puppet shows on TV. These puppets are eerily human and can move their mouths and eyes, etc. Michael was a little creeped out by them!

These next couple pictures are of my aunt Michelle’s classmate from Daxi. He has come across some fame because of these paintings he makes.

Here are a couple dogs who were messing around town:

Finally, a picture of one of the pillars at the main temple in Daxi.

I’m excited for tomorrow’s entry because I’ll show you the rest of Daxi. It brings back so many wonderful childhood memories and I’m so grateful that I got to spend several summers visiting Taiwan.